Atlantis

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The orbiter Atlantis landing on July 21, marking the end of the U.S. space shuttle program.

Kim Shiflett/NASA

Eileen Collins toys with a roll of paper scrap in microgravity while serving as pilot of the U.S. space shuttle orbiter Atlantis in May 1997.

NASA

U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docked with the Russian space station Mir, in a photograph taken by cosmonaut Nikolay Budarin from a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on July 4, 1995.

NASA

Magellan spacecraft and attached Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) rocket being released into a temporary Earth orbit from the payload bay of the space shuttle orbiter Atlantis on May 4, 1989. Shortly afterward, the IUS propelled the spacecraft on a Sun-looping trajectory toward Venus, where it arrived on Aug. 10, 1990.

NASA/JPL

Russian space station Mir, backdropped against Cook Strait near New Zealand’s South Island, as photographed March 23, 1996, from the space shuttle orbiter Atlantis prior to docking of the two spacecraft.

Russian Soyuz TM spacecraft (the mostly dark structure with extended solar panels) docked to a port on the Mir space station, in an image made from the U.S. space shuttle orbiter Atlantis, September 21, 1996.

NASA

Interior of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, U.S. Suspended within is the space shuttle Atlantis before it is joined with its external tank and solid-fuel rocket boosters for flight. One of the largest buildings in the world, the VAB was built to accommodate the assembly of the Apollo-Saturn V vehicles. It contains nearly 3.7 million cubic metres (about 130 million cubic feet) of space.

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Chang-Díaz

...(NASA) astronaut program. He made seven spaceflights. His first mission was aboard the space shuttle
Columbia in January 1986. Other shuttle flights included the
Atlantis mission in October 1989, which deployed the
Galileo spacecraft that explored Jupiter, and the June 2002 flight of
Endeavour, during which he participated...

Collins

...on the orbiter
Discovery for a rendezvous and docking mission to the Russian space station Mir. She piloted a second shuttle flight in May 1997, successfully docking the
Atlantis with Mir to transfer personnel, equipment, and supplies. With hundreds of hours in space to her credit, Collins became the first woman to command a shuttle mission in July 1999, taking...

Kondakova

On her second spaceflight Kondakova was a mission specialist on the STS-84 mission on board the American space shuttle
Atlantis, which launched on May 15, 1997. Kondakova and the crew of
Atlantis transferred equipment and supplies to Mir.
Atlantis landed on May 24 after having spent nine days in space.

Neri Vela

Neri Vela became the first Mexican in space when he flew on the space shuttle
Atlantis as a payload specialist on the STS-61-B crew. He launched into space on November 26, 1985, and returned to Earth on December 3, 1985, after having spent seven days in space. During the mission, Neri Vela and his fellow crew members deployed three communications satellites, one of which was the Mexican...

Ochoa

...training in 1991. In April 1993 she served as mission specialist aboard the shuttle
Discovery, becoming the first Latina to be launched into space. She was part of the
Atlantis mission in November 1994, and in 1999 she was a member of the
Discovery crew that executed the first docking to the International Space Station (ISS). Ochoa returned to...

space shuttles

...minutes of flight; they were then detached and parachuted into the ocean, where they were recovered for future use. A fleet of four operational orbiters, named
Columbia,
Challenger,
Atlantis, and
Discovery, was built in order to allow multiple shuttle flights each year. Facilities in Florida originally constructed for the Apollo program were remodeled for shuttle use,...